Path: koobera.math.uic.edu!not-for-mail From: djb@koobera.math.uic.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Message-ID: <1997Oct907.10.10.29280@koobera.math.uic.edu> Date: 9 Oct 1997 07:10:10 GMT Newsgroups: comp.mail.mime Subject: Re: MIME and "Allow 8-bit" in Netscape Nav. 3.01 References: <199710062159.RAA17422@spot.cs.utk.edu> <1997Oct720.35.30.3223@koobera.math.uic.edu> <61hbdl$ilg@engnews1.Eng.Sun.COM> Organization: IR Carl S. Gutekunst wrote: > if qmail violates the RFC 1652 rules, it is the only one that does. False. For example, sendmail V8, with its default configuration, does just-send-8 for unlabelled 8-bit messages. This is a blatant violation of the RFC 1652 rule that, when the server doesn't proclaim 8BITMIME, ``the client SMTP must not, under any circumstances, attempt to transfer a content which contains characters outside the US-ASCII octet range.'' Furthermore, sendmail V8, with the (fairly popular) 8 flag enabled, advertises 8BITMIME while doing just-send-8 even for MIME messages. This destroys the sanctity of the ``guaranteed safe'' 8BITMIME network. Another example: exim, like qmail, always does just-send-8. It can be configured to declare 8BITMIME, for the same reason that qmail always declares 8BITMIME: to protect users against Q-P conversion. ---Dan Set up a new mailing list in a single command. http://pobox.com/~djb/ezmlm.html